Hey Yonkers

[slammer895]

The inside pp bias at Yonkers is crazy. ML 12-1's get bet down to 8/5 and win. Here is a suggestion. Bring back Post Draw at Post Time like they experimented with at the old Freestate Raceway.
Wagering would close at post time and then they would have a ping pong ball lottery to determine pp's.

[pandy]

Not a bad idea. As John Campbell said in that recent interview at the Jug (which is online via USTA), the half mile tracks should try different things instead of the same old...

[mrroyboy]

Well I generally agree with all you are saying but I think it's a matter of handicappers knowing the tracks. Half mile tracks like Yonkers are different than 5/8 tracks etc. Just part of the game.

[pandy]

Well I generally agree with all you are saying but I think it's a matter of handicappers knowing the tracks. Half mile tracks like Yonkers are different than 5/8 tracks etc. Just part of the game.

From a business standpoint, they should make changes because the highest tracks for handle are all one mile or 7/8 tracks, Balmoral, Cal Expo, Meadowlands, Mohawk, and Woodbine.

[mrroyboy]

I agree.

[wiffleball whizz]

The 12/1s that are bet down to 8/5 are the ml maker getting cute.....guy been around yr fur 30 years........right or wrong pandy.....? Drucker gets cute

[pandy]

Well, most of the time when a 12-1 goes off at 8-5 it is a bad line but it is not intentional.

[wiffleball whizz]

Well, most of the time when a 12-1 goes off at 8-5 it is a bad line but it is not intentional.


Really pandy?!?!? 8,7,6,8,8,7 and dropping with first time sears and Gil Garcia Herrera and 12/1ml :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

[pandy]

Really pandy?!?!? 8,7,6,8,8,7 and dropping with first time sears and Gil Garcia Herrera and 12/1ml :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Sometimes the guy who makes the line is actually making the line using entries or early proofs of past performances.

[slammer895]

Yesterday 4 horse won. 10-1 ML Went off at 7-5.

[pandy]

Yesterday 4 horse won. 10-1 ML Went off at 7-5.

This is the reason why you shouldn't pay too much attention to morning lines.

[mrroyboy]

Anything with Sears or Brennan and Herrera that is 10-1 on the morning line means the line maker is on ACID.

[Just a Fan]

The inside pp bias at Yonkers is crazy. ML 12-1's get bet down to 8/5 and win. Here is a suggestion. Bring back Post Draw at Post Time like they experimented with at the old Freestate Raceway.
Wagering would close at post time and then they would have a ping pong ball lottery to determine pp's.

Not a bad idea. As John Campbell said in that recent interview at the Jug (which is online via USTA), the half mile tracks should try different things instead of the same old...

I remember the Post Draw at Post Time (I thought it was Rosecroft, but you could be right). It didn't last long, and I have to assume that's because the handle plummeted. I assume people didn't like betting on something when they didn't have all the info that they were accustomed to having.

In a way Campbell is right that tracks have to be willing to try different things. The problem is that (IMO) horseplayers in general really, really dislike change, even when the change is designed to make races more competitive. For example, YR has tried the 1 1/16 races several times, which make all the sense in the world in terms of making the races more interesting. But I think many fans are turned off trying to look at the final times and last 5/16 times, and trying to understand how they correlate to the traditional mile times and last 1/4's.

Or from the TB world, racing on synthetic surfaces, which often remove some of the track biases that can make the racing too predictable... you would think handicappers were being asked to bet on an entirely different breed of animal, the way people cry and moan about how synthetics are different from dirt. There's nothing "wrong" with racing on synthetic tracks, it just has its own nuances, and the most successful players pick up on those trends and use them to their advantage, while everybody else just whines about how things aren't how they used to be, and how such-and-such never would have lost if the race was on dirt.

When horse racing becomes too predictable, it becomes less appealing to bet, because its hard for any horseplayer to build some sort of an edge over the pool of other bettors. I think that's what has happened to harness racing, particularly on a half mile track.

[Sea Biscuit]

The inside pp bias at Yonkers is crazy. ML 12-1's get bet down to 8/5 and win. Here is a suggestion. Bring back Post Draw at Post Time like they experimented with at the old Freestate Raceway.
Wagering would close at post time and then they would have a ping pong ball lottery to determine pp's.

The bias would end if they introduce the Madison gate back into action at all 1/2 mile tracks

http://i1099.photobucket.com/albums/g387/secretariat3/Madisongate_zpse78d5e7a.jpg (http://s1099.photobucket.com/user/secretariat3/media/Madisongate_zpse78d5e7a.jpg.html)

[slammer895]

I remember the Post Draw at Post Time (I thought it was Rosecroft, but you could be right). It didn't last long, and I have to assume that's because the handle plummeted. I assume people didn't like betting on something when they didn't have all the info that they were accustomed to having.

In a way Campbell is right that tracks have to be willing to try different things. The problem is that (IMO) horseplayers in general really, really dislike change, even when the change is designed to make races more competitive. For example, YR has tried the 1 1/16 races several times, which make all the sense in the world in terms of making the races more interesting. But I think many fans are turned off trying to look at the final times and last 5/16 times, and trying to understand how they correlate to the traditional mile times and last 1/4's.

Or from the TB world, racing on synthetic surfaces, which often remove some of the track biases that can make the racing too predictable... you would think handicappers were being asked to bet on an entirely different breed of animal, the way people cry and moan about how synthetics are different from dirt. There's nothing "wrong" with racing on synthetic tracks, it just has its own nuances, and the most successful players pick up on those trends and use them to their advantage, while everybody else just whines about how things aren't how they used to be, and how such-and-such never would have lost if the race was on dirt.

When horse racing becomes too predictable, it becomes less appealing to bet, because its hard for any horseplayer to build some sort of an edge over the pool of other bettors. I think that's what has happened to harness racing, particularly on a half mile track.

It was definitely Freestate (formerly Laurel Raceway). They tried it for up to six races on a card but never on open, invitational or stakes races. The reason it stopped was because it shutdown to become a CarMax. Rosecroft expanded from a 1/2 mile track to a 5/8. They also built it into a Eurotrack with banked turns and I think was one of the first tacks to use pylons. Freestate and Rosecroft had some cool stakes races. The Potomac, Terrapin, Senatorial and Presidential.

[pandy]

I remember the Post Draw at Post Time (I thought it was Rosecroft, but you could be right). It didn't last long, and I have to assume that's because the handle plummeted. I assume people didn't like betting on something when they didn't have all the info that they were accustomed to having.

In a way Campbell is right that tracks have to be willing to try different things. The problem is that (IMO) horseplayers in general really, really dislike change, even when the change is designed to make races more competitive. For example, YR has tried the 1 1/16 races several times, which make all the sense in the world in terms of making the races more interesting. But I think many fans are turned off trying to look at the final times and last 5/16 times, and trying to understand how they correlate to the traditional mile times and last 1/4's.

Or from the TB world, racing on synthetic surfaces, which often remove some of the track biases that can make the racing too predictable... you would think handicappers were being asked to bet on an entirely different breed of animal, the way people cry and moan about how synthetics are different from dirt. There's nothing "wrong" with racing on synthetic tracks, it just has its own nuances, and the most successful players pick up on those trends and use them to their advantage, while everybody else just whines about how things aren't how they used to be, and how such-and-such never would have lost if the race was on dirt.

When horse racing becomes too predictable, it becomes less appealing to bet, because its hard for any horseplayer to build some sort of an edge over the pool of other bettors. I think that's what has happened to harness racing, particularly on a half mile track.

Well put.

[grant miller]

If trainers & drivers would atleast put an effort when they draw outside the 5 hole it might draw fans back.

[pandy]

If trainers & drivers would atleast put an effort when they draw outside the 5 hole it might draw fans back.


Sometimes it's easier said than done because if your horse doesn't have natural gate speed you have to race off the pace and then the driver is at the mercy of the pace and flow.

[melman]

Bob do you think it would make for a better game if YR went to having the 7 and 8 start from the second tier? The only reason I still look at YR is because of the great Matt Rose. He has had amazing results this year. If there is a "live longshot" Matt more often that not is on it.

[Just a Fan]

It was definitely Freestate (formerly Laurel Raceway). They tried it for up to six races on a card but never on open, invitational or stakes races. The reason it stopped was because it shutdown to become a CarMax. Rosecroft expanded from a 1/2 mile track to a 5/8. They also built it into a Eurotrack with banked turns and I think was one of the first tacks to use pylons. Freestate and Rosecroft had some cool stakes races. The Potomac, Terrapin, Senatorial and Presidential.


Freestate was closed before the simulcasting era so I don't really have many memories of that track. Was it a 1/2 or a 5/8? Either way, the post draws must have been pretty dramatic.

[Stillriledup]

Here's a novel idea...and you know, Pandy has some pull in the industry so he can get this done....if you guys think its a good idea or if its something you would want to bet on, let me know.

So, there's 8 horses in a race at Yonkers.....each horse gets his own betting number and instead of the 8 horses all starting the race at once, they each start at their own time....the first horse goes and then 15 or 20 seconds later, the next horse goes and so on and so forth. Each horse goes as fast as he or she can and they all record their own individual final times, but you would need races timed in 100ths. After all 8 horses race, you make the results official ranking them by final time. This way, every horse gets to save ground on all the turns, nobody will ever get boxed in, you will have a full shot to win.

Why would this be a bad idea?

[Ray2000]

Here's a novel idea...

Let the favorite go first,
pause
offer Win/Lay wagers on "will beat/won't beat" on the others.
continue


Bring back the prompters....
:D

[pandy]

Bob do you think it would make for a better game if YR went to having the 7 and 8 start from the second tier? The only reason I still look at YR is because of the great Matt Rose. He has had amazing results this year. If there is a "live longshot" Matt more often that not is on it.

Personally I don't think the second tier start would help much. The problem is it penalizes the horses because leavers win most of the races at Yonkers so if a horse is in the second tier it's behind the eight ball from the start. The mile and a sixteenth distance produced literally double the percentage of winners from posts 6, 7, 8 when they used it a couple of years ago, so that worked as far as helping the post bias. The other problem is that closers don't win as often as they used to and that is another reason why half mile tracks are dying. A switch to a synthetic surface would probably work because it would be slower but that will never happen. The other thing would be to go back to the wood bikes, but that won't happen either. Bottom line is that the people that run these tracks don't want to make the changes to save their business, especially if they have slots. I am surprised that non-slot half mile tracks like Freehold haven't made more changes, or even a track like Monticello where the slots aren't doing that well.

Maywood has an untimed longer race which has helped a lot. Posts 7 and 8 at Maywood win at a much higher percentage than any other half mile track, but the closer problem still exists.

If you don't slow down the race closers are going to struggle. The only other thing I can think of is to do something like John Campbell suggested, pay $1,000 to the leader at each quarter pole. That would result in a vicious pace and closers would win a lot more races, but the problem I see with that is it will hurt the horses in the long run.

If I ran a half mile track I would start all of the races as far to the left of the stretch as possible and I would even consider putting in a chute if the stretch was short, and I would only allow wooden bikes, which I would have manufactured myself. With those two changes, I would have the best half mile track racing in the sport and quite possibly the best harness racing to bet on, period.

[badcompany]

If trainers & drivers would atleast put an effort when they draw outside the 5 hole it might draw fans back.

With the start so close to the first turn, unless a horse has crazy gate speed, he'll end up 3 wide for the whole first quarter. Even if he gets to the top, he'll be cooked.

[pandy]

With the start so close to the first turn, unless a horse has crazy gate speed, he'll end up 3 wide for the whole first quarter. Even if he gets to the top, he'll be cooked.


That's the problem.

[slammer895]

Freestate was closed before the simulcasting era so I don't really have many memories of that track. Was it a 1/2 or a 5/8? Either way, the post draws must have been pretty dramatic.

5/8. Summertime track. Post draws were dramatic when you had the favorite and drew the 8 post. Then everybody was screaming fix.